RENTAL SPOTLIGHT
SKYJACK REVAMPS L ROUGH-TERRAIN S A Q&A WITH COREY CONNOLLY, By Kaitlyn Till, Editor in Chief Kaitlyn Till: What trends are driving Skyjack’s introduction of its largest rough-terrain scissor lifts? Corey Connolly: Our new line of large rough-terrain scissor lifts is a combination of replacing existing products (30-, 40- and 50-foot models) as well as introducing a new one (60-foot model). Looking at the replacement models, the need to update our existing models was primarily being driven by a few different things: changes to North American designs standards, changes to European emission standards and changes to customer/user expectations. Looking at our existing models, other than paint, label and engine changes, we had not made any updates to them since they were introduced in the 1990s. Platform heights and capacities on our existing machines were no longer meeting all of our customer’s needs. Increasing platform heights from 50 feet to 53 feet on our 9253 represent the difference between being able to work on a five-storey building and a six-storey building. Like a lot of product introductions, customer demand is the primary driver behind introducing our newest and largest rough-terrain scissor lift model – SJ9263 RT. This isn’t a new class that we are creating, however we recognize that with growing demand it can no longer be viewed as a niche segment. Our customers see a growing demand from their customers in applications that are no different than what would traditionally be filled by 30-, 40- and 50-foot machines, except that they are asking to go higher. In the past you were limited to either going to a totally different product (a boom) or scissor lift that was larger (>80 feet) than what was even required (and with availability more geographically 30
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